Apple CEO Tim Cook hopes the no-holds-barred, conservative social media site Parler will eventually return to the Apple’s App Store.
In an interview on the New York Times’ “Sway” podcast Monday, Cook said the decision to boot Parlor was “straightforward.”
“They were not adhering to the rules of the App Store,” he said, but quickly adding: “I hope they come back.”
“I’m hoping that they put in the moderation that’s required to be on the store and come back, because I think having more social networks out there is better than having less.”
Parler, which had promoted itself as a free speech alternative platform to Facebook and Twitter, was removed from both Apple’s and Google’s app stores shortly after the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Apple determined Parler had failed to take sufficient action against content on the platform encouraging violence in the run up to attack.
Amazon also dropped Parler from its hosting service for similar concerns.
Cook previously had said the social media platform would be allowed back on the App Store if their content moderation improved.
“We work hard to get people on the store, not to keep people off the store,” Cook said on the Monday podcast.
Last month, lawyers for Parler wrote to House Oversight Committee chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., arguing that the company referred violent content to the agency more than 50 times, The Hill reported at the time.
The lawyers noted some of those flagged posts included threats specific to the Capitol, where five people died during an attempt to stop Congress from verifying President Joe Biden’s electoral college win.
Parler relaunched in February, saying its new platform is built on “sustainable, independent technology.”
The giant social media companies are feeling the heat from conservatives.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, for example, has taken on Google in a lawsuit over its alleged “anti-competitive practices and deceptive misrepresentations.”
“Google’s monopolization of online-display advertising includes an anticompetitive agreement with Facebook, making misrepresentations to users and customers, and suppressing competition,” Paxton said in a statement at the time of the December 2020 filing.
And last month, the ex-campaign manager for former President Donald Trump told Newsmax TV that Trump plans to launch his own social media company in two to three months.
“What we’ve seen from big tech and the cancel culture is if you don’t agree with their philosophy, they’re going to cancel you, and we’re going to have a platform where the president’s message of America First is going to be able to be put out to everybody and there’ll be an opportunity for other people to weigh in and communicate in a free format without fear of reprisal or being canceled,” Corey Lewandowski told “Saturday Agenda” host Joe Pinion.
Source: Newmax
